There's no time like the past
by Isla Singer
Summary: *adopted from BookDancer* People from the Ranger's Apprentice are sent to the past to read the books with past King Duncan, Sir David, and Halt. How does everyone react? Future people include: Will, Alyss, Horace, Cassie, Halt, Erak, Jenny, Crowley, Gilan, and a few more.
1. Chapter 1

Hey people, I adopted this fic from Bookdancer. The first and second chapter belong to her. Just want to say that.

I will try my best to update once a week if not every two weeks at the latest. As this will be my first long fic, plz go easy on me and tell me how I can improve.

Disclaimer: Rangers Apprentice belongs to it's author, and the idea for this belongs to Bookdancer.

Chapter One: Two Halts, a Bunch of People, and a Summary

When it happened, Will was filling out a report. Halt was thinking about getting another apprentice to do the chores for him. Crowley was twiddling his thumbs as he looked at the fire, wondering why he couldn't get a secretary to do all of his reports. Alyss and Lady Pauline were going over the necessities of Alyss and Will's wedding. Horace and Cassandra were making out in Cassandra's bedroom. Jenny was making dinner for her date with Gilan. Gilan was getting ready for his date. Baron Arald was going to the kitchens to request his favorite meal. Sir Rodney was resting in his rooms after a hard days work. Erak was looking wistfully out the window at all of the Skandians who were getting ready to go raiding (not in Araluen, of course). You may be wondering, 'When what happened? They were doing those things when what happened?'. Well, they were doing those things when a soft, golden light enveloped them and dropped them in a heap in front of a group of surprised people.

King Duncan was age twenty-two and the father of a (in his opinion, not the nannies) wonderful, beautiful, little two-year-old girl. Said girl was currently giggling at her nannies attempts to get her dressed and ready for bed (therefore giving the nannies a serious reason to dislike the young princess). King Duncan, Sir David, and Ranger Halt looked at each other, listening to the screams and giggles coming from upstairs.

"I'm officially glad that I didn't bring Gilan." Sir David stated. The three winced, they all knew that 1 two-year-old + 1 seven-year-old = a disaster.

"Me, too." The king and ranger groaned in unison. They may have started listing the pros and cons about children (especially aged two and seven) until night fell, but were interrupted by a soft, golden light that covered the floor before disappearing. In its place were four men in ranger's clothing, two women in courier's clothing, one couple that were thankfully clothed, one pretty girl, an older looking Baron Arald, one man dressed in knight's clothing, and what looked like a Skandian lying on the floor in a heap.

One of the rangers groaned, stood up, gasped, and cried, "Wha-, are you-, where am I?"

"Sorry, Halt," One of the other rangers said, to the king, knight, and ranger's surprise, "but the better question would be, 'Where are _we_?'"

Duncan shook his head before crying, "There are two Halts?" The rest of the people slowly extracted themselves from the pile and looked around.

"Who are you?" Sir David demanded.

"Uh, don't you recognize me?" One of the stranger rangers asked.

"No, why shou-" Sir David stopped short as the ranger lowered his hood. "_Gilan_?"

"The one and only." The ranger said cheekily.

"Wait." Halt said, "What is that?" Everyone looked towards where he was pointing. There, resting gently on the ground, was a piece of paper. One of the unidentified rangers stepped forward and picked it up.

"Dear rangers, knights, king, princess, baron, Oberjarl, couriers, and cook,

It is of my pleasure to inform you that you have been summoned to read a series of books about a boy named Will. Some of you are from the present, others from the past. Please don't kill anyone, as it would be a problem that I don't want to have to worry about. Don't ask how I managed to get the books made or people sent to the past, it's really too hard to explain. By the way, this is King Duncan speaking, the person writing is someone else that I believe some of you know. His name is George. Love to Cassie, Duncan"

"Uh, maybe we should introduce ourselves." The last ranger said, seeming shocked. Duncan nodded, "King Duncan."

"Halt." Halt said.

"Sir David."

"Halt." Halt said.

"Crowley." The one who read the letter said.

"Gilan."

"Will." The last ranger introduced himself.

"Lady Pauline."

"Alyss."

"Horace."

"Baron Arald."

"Cassandra."

"Sir Rodney."

"Jenny."

"Erak." The last person said. "So, who's reading first?" Erak motioned towards a stack of books that he had noticed.

"I will. However, I believe we should read the summary first." Alyss said, stepping gracefully over to the books. Once they were all seated, they began.

**Ranger's Apprentice, Book One: The Ruins of Gorlan.**

"Wait, The Ruins of _Gorlan_?" Halt asked, "You don't mean tha-"

"Just let me read!" Alyss told him.

**The summary is:**

**They have always scared him in the past—the Rangers with their dark cloaks and mysterious ways.**

"Why?" Gilan questioned, "We're awesome!"

Will grinned, "Yeah, I know that now, but before..."

"Will you just let me finish!"

**Folks in the village claim that Rangers have the power to become invisible at will. A skill Will would now dearly love to have.**

"Why?" Sir David wondered.

"You'll see." Will told him, making the knight ground his teeth in frustration.

**Will's heart had been set on Battle- school, on becoming a hero to the kingdom.**

"Nice pick." Sir David said, grinning.

**But Will is small for his fifteen years, too small to be a warrior. He possesses other skills, though-a Ranger's skills. He can move silent as a shadow. He can climb. And he is brave.**

"Sounds like a ranger, all right." Halt said. "Who's apprentice are you?" Will simply smiled at him, leaving him to wonder.

**He will need all these skills and more. For Morgarath, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, is gathering his forces.**

"NO!" Duncan cried. "We defeated him! He can't come back now!"

**A battle for the kingdom is destined to begin. A battle the likes of which Will cannot even imagine.**

Alyss stopped. "That's it." She told them. "And I would also like to read the prologue." The others nodded, and she began.

**Please review! **


	2. Prologue

There's No Time Like The Past

**For those of you who will probably get confused, the Halt from the past/present is regular print, ****the Halt from the future is underlined****. The bold print (besides the ANs) is the book. I do not own The Ranger's Apprentice.**

**Disclaimer: Rangers Apprentice belongs to its author (which for the life of me, I can never remember the name of) and the idea for this plot belongs to Author Bookdancer. Which by the way you definitely should check her works out. They are downright awesome.**

Chapter Two: The Prologue

_Alyss stopped. "That's it." She told them. "And I would also like to read the prologue." The others nodded, and she began._

**Prologue:**

**Morgarath, the Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, former Baron of Gorlan in the Kingdom of Araluen, looked out over his bleak, rainswept domain and, for perhaps the thousandth time, cursed.**

**This was all that was left to him now - a jumble of rugged granite cliffs, tumbled boulders and icy mountains. Of sheer gorges and steep narrow passes. Of gravel and rock, with never a tree or a sign of green to break the monotony.**

"Of course not." Halt snorted. "What did you think? We'd leave you in a wonderful castle with maids and footmen waiting on you hand and foot?"

**Even though it had been fifteen years since he had been driven back into this forbidding realm that had become his prison, he could still remember the pleasant green glades and thickly forested hills of his former fief. The streams filled with fish and the fields rich with crops and game. Gorlan had been a beautiful, living place. The Mountains of Rain and Night**

**were dead and desolate.**

**A platoon of Wargals was drilling in the castle yard below him. Morgarath watched them for a few seconds, listening to the guttural, rhythmic chant that accompanied all their movements. They were stocky, misshapen beings, with features that were halfway human, but with a long, brutish muzzle and fangs like a bear or a large dog.**

Will shuddered. "I really don't like those things."

Halt smiled gently(?) at him, remembering the first time Will had encountered the creatures.

"Of course," Will added, "they're nothing to the Kalkara."

"You met the Kalkara?" King Duncan asked, worried.

The people from the past simply shrugged, not wanting to give anything away.

**Avoiding all contact with humans, the Wargals had lived and bred in these remote mountains since ancient times. No one in living memory had ever set eyes upon one, but rumors and legends had persisted of a savage tribe of semi-intelligent beasts in the mountains. Morgarath, planning a revolt against the Kingdom of Araluen, had left Gorlan Fief to seek them out. If such creatures existed, they would give him an edge in the war that was to come.**

"Yeah," Sir David muttered. "An edge that you didn't need."

**It took him months, but he eventually found them. Aside from their wordless chant, Wargals had no spoken language, relying on a primitive form of thought awareness for communication. But their minds were simple and their intellects basic. As a result, they had been totally susceptible to domination by a superior intelligence and willpower. Morgarath bent them to his will and they became the perfect army for him-ugly beyond nightmares,**

**utterly pitiless and bound totally to his mental orders.**

"Wait," Halt interrupted, "_mental_ orders? Wouldn't that mean..."

Alyss pushed on, wanting to get to the interesting parts.

**Now, looking at them, he remembered the brightly dressed knights in glittering armor who used to compete in tourneys at Castle Gorlan, their silk-gowned ladies cheering them on and applauding their skills.**

Cassie grinned. "Now that's something that all women do. It's not just the ladies and noble born." She winked at Alyss, who blushed profusely at the future people's confusion.

**Mentally comparing them to these black-furred, misshapen creatures, he cursed again.**

"Oh, yeah. I love causing him discomfort." Gilan sighed, closing his eyes in pleasure. Everyone shook their heads at his foolishness, wondering how the younger people were acting more mature than he was.

**The Wargals, attuned to his thoughts, sensed his disturbance and stirred uncomfortably, pausing in what they were doing. Angrily, he directed them back to their drill and the chanting resumed.**

"I thought he did everything angrily?" Horace asked, confused.

"Don't worry about it, Kurokuma. You might hurt your brain." Halt grinned at him. Horace flushed as Cassie smacked Halt and everyone laughed. However, three people were wondering, _Kurokuma? I thought his name was Horace!_

**Morgarath moved away from the unglazed window, closer to the fire that seemed utterly incapable of dispelling the damp and chill from this gloomy castle. Fifteen years, he thought to himself again. Fifteen years since he had rebelled against the newly crowned King Duncan, a youth in his twenties.**

"Only fifteen?" Duncan asked, horrified. "That's thirteen years from now! How could he recover so quickly?"

The others simply bowed their heads, wishing with Duncan that he had never even revolted.

**He had planned it all carefully as the old king's sickness progressed, banking on the indecision and confusion that would follow his death to split the other barons and give Morgarath his opportunity to seize the throne.**

**Secretly, he had trained his army of Wargals, massing them up here in the mountains, ready for the moment to strike. Then, in the days of confusion and grief following the king's death, when the barons traveled to Castle Araluen for the funeral rites, leaving their armies leaderless, he had attacked, overrunning the southeastern quarter of the kingdom in a matter of days, routing the confused, leaderless forces that tried to oppose him.**

"So that's how he did it." Duncan muttered. "I never really understood how he managed to gather all of those forces so quickly."

**Duncan, young and inexperienced, could never have stood against him. The kingdom was his for the taking. The throne was his for the asking.**

"Yeah, right." Sir David snorted. "Honestly, he thought it'd be that easy?"

**Then Lord Northolt, the old king's supreme army commander, had rallied some of the younger barons into a loyal confederation, giving strength to Duncan's resolve and stiffening the wavering courage of the others.**

"Whoooh! Go Northolt!" Gilan and Horace cheered. "Let's get an N, how 'bout an O! Now let's take an R, T, and H! Add an O, L, and T, and guess what that spells? NORTHOLT! Whoooh! Take that Morgarath!"

Nothing but silence greeted their outburst. Then, to the men's utter embarrassment, they realized that they had jumped up and shaped the letters as they yelled them.

They dropped to the ground and buried themselves beneath the blankets that Duncan had sent for. At a motion from Crowley, Alyss started again.

**The armies had met at Hackham Heath, close by the Slipsunder River, and the battle swayed in the balance for five hours, with attack and counterattack and massive loss of life. The Slipsunder was a shallow river, but its treacherous reaches of quicksand and soft mud had formed an impassable barrier, protecting Morgarath's right flank.**

"BOOO! Bad Morgarath!" Everyone turned to stare at Cassie. "What?" She asked. "With my husband and friend hiding, someone has to do it!"

"Wait, _husband_?" Duncan choked.

"I am old enough, Dad."

"Uh, okay. But, er, who?"

"The knight."

"_HIM?_"

"Yep, me! But why? Is there a problem?" Horace asked, peeking out from under the blanket. "I mean, you did knight me in my second year of battle-school."

"I what?" Duncan gasped.

"Knighted him in his second year of battle-school. But don't worry, it was for a good reason." Sir Rodney said. Alyss and Will shared grins at Duncan's reaction to his future son-in-law before Alyss continued.

**But then one of those gray-cloaked meddlers known as Rangers**

"Hey! We're not meddlers!" All of the rangers yelled. The others sniggered at their reactions.

**But then one of those gray-cloaked meddlers known as Rangers led a force of heavy cavalry across a secret ford ten kilometers upstream. The armored horsemen appeared at the crucial moment of the battle and fell upon the rear of Morgarath's army.**

**The Wargals, trained in the tumbled rocks of the mountains, had one weakness. They feared horses and could never stand against such a surprise cavalry attack. They broke, retreating to the narrow confines of Three Step Pass, and back to the Mountains of Rain and Night. Morgarath, his rebellion defeated, went with them.**

**And here he had been exiled these fifteen years. Waiting, plotting, hating the men who had done this to him.**

**Now, he thought, it was time for his revenge. His spies told him the kingdom had grown slack and complacent and his presence here was all but forgotten.**

"Not true!" Halt yelled to the surprise of everyone else. "But, wait, spies?" The others shivered at how Morgarath could use those spies to his advantage. He could gather information that he couldn't have gotten other ways.

**The name Morgarath was a name of legend nowadays, a name mothers used to hush fractious children, threatening that if they did not behave, the black lord Morgarath would come for them.**

**The time was ripe. Once again, he would lead his Wargals into an attack. But this time he would have allies.**

The people from the future couldn't help but glance at Erak, who thundered, "We realized it was a bad idea, you can't blame us anyhow, since we helped later!"

**And this time he would sow the ground with uncertainty and confusion beforehand. This time none of those who conspired against him previously would be left alive to aid King Duncan.**

**For the Wargals were not the only ancient, terrifying creatures he had found in these somber mountains. He had two other allies, even more fearsome-the dreadful beasts known as the Kalkara.**

**The time was ripe to unleash them.**

"That's the end." Alyss told them. Meanwhile, the three from the present were dumbstruck. The people from the future had fought against the Kalkara? How was it that they seemed to get even more dangerous creatures to fight later on?

"Who's reading next?" Alyss questioned.

"I will." Halt said.

**And that's it! Plz review, I want to know how I can improve and how this fic can be to your satisfaction. **


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